Coach Q&A: Mike Woodson reacts to Indiana basketball’s close win against Wright State

Indiana basketball head coach Mike Woodson spoke to reporters following IU’s close win against Wright State on Thursday.

Woodson discussed the the defensive struggles, his concerns moving forward and much more.

Below is the full video Q&A and transcript.

Q. With the number of threes you guys have given up to your first three opponents, what are some defensive adjustments or changes or improvements that you’d like to see?

MIKE WOODSON: Just us switching correctly and getting next to a guy before he shoots the basketball. That would help. I really don’t want to talk about it. I’d like to talk about my grandbaby. I should send out a shout-out to Mariah Adams and her husband for having our first grandbaby tonight. Way to go, Mariah, if you’re listening.

Q. We spent so much time the last two years asking you about Trayce. Kel’el obviously plays that position differently. With a guy that can move around the floor and stay in the offense the way that he can with his jump shot, with his three-point shot, just how much can he give you when maybe you’re trying to fit some other pieces together, just an anchor point for you I guess?

MIKE WOODSON: He’s doing everything we’ve asked him to do since he’s been here, and he’s rebounded the ball. He’s blocked shots. He’s made shots on the perimeter. He’s made shots down low. I just want to keep him in that space.

Q. An extension of that, did you expect him to have so much confidence? Did you see that in the preseason or were you interested to see what happened in the first few games? He seems to be playing with a lot of confidence especially with his back to the basket. Did you expect that from him?

MIKE WOODSON: He’s a young player. All these guys are young players. Sometimes on certain nights you get good things from some of these young players. Sometimes you don’t. That’s just how it works. He’s been playing extremely well. He started out a little slow when we first got together, and he’s picked it up, and he’s doing all the things that we’ve asked him to do, and we’ve just got to take it a game at a time and keep him in a good place where he’s doing the things that he’s been doing for us.

Q. As far as the team is concerned, of the things that have cropped up in the three games, whether it’s free-throw shooting, three-point defense, shot selection at times, where is the most level of concern that you have, or is it just collectively about everything?

MIKE WOODSON: Well, it would be a major concern had we lost those three games. We won them. Be curious to see what you guys would really be saying had we lost the games.

We haven’t put a perfect game together. The game before this game we made our free throws. We didn’t make them tonight. The three ball has been a major concern. We haven’t shot the three ball very well. So I figure if you put all those together, boy, life might be pretty good. I wouldn’t probably be having this conversation with you. But that ain’t the case. So we’ve just got to keep working, take it a practice at a time, a game at a time and see where it leads us.

Q. The offense seemed to click a lot more today early, 54 first-half points, 89 total. What were some of the adjustments you made in practice this week to try to get the offense clicking a little more?

MIKE WOODSON: I thought we got out to a great start the first time this unit in a real game, established themselves on both ends of the floor from a defensive standpoint and putting the ball in the hole. Then we gave up three straight threes. They were sitting at 30 with about I think four on the clock, four or five on the clock. You can’t go in giving up 19 points basically is what we gave up going in at halftime. That’s something we hadn’t done since this unit has been together, a 19-point stretch in four or five minutes. That’s just too many points. They made a game out of it going in at halftime.

Those are things that we’ve got to clean up, but I was pleased with the way in terms of how they started the game on both ends of the floor because we hadn’t seen that in the first two games.

Q. On the offensive end in the first half there seemed like a real emphasis to push the pace and attack in the first 10 seconds of possessions and it seemed like you had a lot of success with that. Did you emphasize that going into the game? Did you like what you saw, and did you feel like the guys got away from that a little bit?

MIKE WOODSON: Well, I thought we got away from it, but we had been working on that in practice and trying to push the pace, get more ball movement, body movement, and I thought we established that early. It didn’t hurt us that we were getting stops and getting out.

All those things play a major role in terms of how you play offense. It’s kind of nice to see because that first unit had been struggling in the first two games coming out of the box.

We’ve just got to figure out how to put a complete 40-minute game together the way I’d like to see.

Q. Getting to talk to Malik earlier this week he talked about how he and Kel’el have been coming together in terms of their progression on the court and off the court chemistry wise, what are you getting from them that you like, and what’s next for that duo?

MIKE WOODSON: They’re playing well together. When you talk about going against teams that got big bodies, they’ve got to play that way. We call it buddy ball. They’re really connecting in terms of making plays for one another, high-low plays. They both are extremely good passers with the basketball. They give passes. If you’re open they’ll give you the ball. You’ve just got to do something with it when you get it.

Q. The first three opponents have hit the offensive glass really hard, 14 offensive boards for Wright State tonight. Is that a concern going forward, or is it just smaller teams just taking threes and —

MIKE WOODSON: No, I think it is a concern. A lot of it is because the three teams are really taking a lot of three-point shots against us, and long shots, long rebounds. Our guards, I can’t have my starting guards play 26, 28 minutes and get one rebound apiece. That just can’t happen. Hell, I can get a rebound at 65 years of age probably, stumble into one. They’ve got to help rebound the ball.

I think Ware and Malik are doing a great job as far as rebounding it, but the surrounding pieces, we’ve got to pick up the scraps that are out there. Our opponents are beating us to those balls, and we’ve got to figure that out.

Q. Quickly on X, I recognize it sort of just happened right there at the end. What happened, and where is he at?

MIKE WOODSON: I have no idea where he is right now. I’ll know more tomorrow when I come in.

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